


Heart of Stone

by EwanMcGregorIsMyHomeboy12



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Crushes, M/M, Ned Stark is a Bicon, One-Sided Crush, POV Stannis Baratheon, Stannis the Mannis, Sweet Stannis, Young Love, Young Stannis, hard to tag
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-03-22
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:07:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23062945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EwanMcGregorIsMyHomeboy12/pseuds/EwanMcGregorIsMyHomeboy12
Summary: When Stannis Baratheon is eleven years old, his brother returns to Storm's End for a visit from the Vale, bringing with him Ned Stark and a spectrum of feelings Stannis didn't know he had.When Stannis Baratheon is eighteen years old, he holds his brother Renly on his lap and waits to die in the castle he calls home. Until a lowborn man with a cask of onions and dried beef, slips past the sieging soldiers and brings more than food to Storm's End.tldr; In which Stannis Baratheon begins to understand love.
Relationships: Renly Baratheon & Stannis Baratheon, Robert Baratheon & Ned Stark, Robert Baratheon & Stannis Baratheon, Shireen Baratheon & Stannis Baratheon, Stannis Baratheon/Davos Seaworth, Stannis Baratheon/Ned Stark
Comments: 4
Kudos: 52





	1. Spring at Storm's End

**Author's Note:**

> This is born of my love for Davos Seaworth, Stannis the Mannis, and Ned Stark. Love them and what they represent.  
> Hope you enjoy! Please R and R, let me know what oyu think!

The flowers that grew at Storm’s End were little more than weeds. Their roots crawled as vines between the cracks in the rocks keeping the erosion at bay or as thick-stemmed reeds that took root on the sandy shores and blew wildly in the harsh winds. What flowers did grow were short-lived, pitiful things that wilted with too much or too little sun, pale in color and tenacity, or else they were wide, so white they were nearly clear, and laid so flat against the cliffsides that their petals did not stir in the breeze.

This spring, however, had seemed different. The winds were no less than they had been during the short winter, though the cold bite that had swept over Storm’s End now was instead tinged with warmth. The waves were no less harsh, bathing the rocks and sand in brackish water, though perhaps they were a touch more blue than the wine-dark color they had been when the whole of Westeros has seemed covered by a heavy gray shadow. Even the castle, with its long halls that even the constant fires had not been able to clear of chill for months, seemed brighter.

To Stannis, these things had coincided with Robert’s return from the Vale. Not a permanent return, of course, but a short visit that coincided with the spring. Stannis had been part of the welcoming party when they returned, had watched as the small boats had docked, carrying what seemed hundreds of Arryn men, their heads bobbing and swarming along the shores and up the hills in silvery clothing to the point they had resembled more a school of fish than a group of men.

At their helm had been Jon Arryn, broad-shouldered with eyes the color of robin’s eggs, and a sigil of the same color thread embroidered on his doublet. To his right had been Robert, and even though Stannis knew that his brother was only just past his thirteenth nameday, he stood at a height with Jon Arryn. On his strong face was a smirk, covered in passing by the hint of a beard like the one their father wore. As he had come up the sands, their father had stepped forward to half-embrace him, his own face split in a wide smile. Standing still in the welcoming line, he had felt his mother’s fingers gentle on his arm, perhaps attempting to be reassuring that although it was clear that Robert and their father were of a kind, that Stannis was important. After a moment, she too had stepped forward to embrace her oldest son.

On Robert’s other side, however, had been another boy. Smaller, more of a size with Stannis even though he was older. He had a long face and eyes the same gray as the direwolf sigil on his doublet. Though Robert had ignored Stannis as he seemed to soak in their father’s praise and their mother’s inquires, this boy, Ned Stark, had taken care to smile at Stannis. And as they had walked back to the castle for the spring welcoming feast, he had fallen into step beside him, asking him questions about the castle.

In the first days, Stannis had seen little of him. Robert had escorted him around the castle, and although Stannis had passed them in the halls and the library and the yard, Robert had ignored him in large part. Ned Stark, though, had always acknowledged him with a smile and a small wave. He sat between them at feasts now, all lined up on their father’s right side, and though Robert dominated the majority of Ned Stark’s attention, in those moments when Lord Steffon demanded his heir's attention or Jon Arryn, seated next to Lady Cassana, caught him in conversation and Ned Stark could have been content to eat his cuts of crisp fish or sweet crabapple tarts in silence, he would turn to Stannis instead with a quiet story about the falcons of the Vale or the Bael the Bard or the eagles that had once been large enough to carry men into battle.

The next morning, he had appeared as Stannis stood in the falconry, readying himself for a solitary hunt as Robert was planning sparring matches with many of the landed knights in the yard. Their father had encouraged Stannis to attend, to fight himself. Stannis had been hard pressed to find something he would have enjoyed less than being the first person for Robert to toss aside as highborn men who drank too much of the castle wine casks and were far too loud in their japes laughed at him lying in the mud and praised Robert for his strength in the same breath.

_“Aren’t you going to fight with Robert?” He had asked Ned Stark, and cringed to hear the bitterness seep into the edge of his tone._

_“I fight him often enough,” Ned Stark had said, and his slate gray eyes had had crinkled a bit with a smile. “This seemed a nicer way to spend the morning. My sister Lyanna and I used to go into the Wolfswood together_

The weeks that passed had come and gone and Ned Stark had become a fixture in Stannis’ periphery. His days were still largely spent in Robert’s company, but it was more than once that he had come into the library when Stannis was there for his lessons and had given him a soft smile. He did not laugh at Robert’s lewd jokes about the kitchen maids their age in the castle, didn’t make a show of himself diving form the cliffs into the sea as Robert did. Instead he went about his days seemingly peacefully, talking to squires and servants and highborn lords and ladies alike when he was not in Robert’s company. He jested with Robert at times, but never with the edge of cruelty that Stannis thought Robert dealt his with.

The longer they stayed, the more clear it was that spring was apparent. Sunlight broke though the persistent fog, the animals that Proudwing carried back to him started to have some fat around their bones instead of the stringy muscles they had had for months on end. To the rest of Storm’s End, these good tidings had coincided with the return of their future lord, a look to the future. To a time beyond winter. For Stannis, this new warmth and life seemed to bloom with Ned Stark.

He had taken to watching for him as the Vale party’s time at Storm’s End was drawing to a close. He could not have said why, but there had been a moment, as he put away books from Maester Cressen’s table onto the heavy stone shelves, that he had glimpsed Ned Stark through the window. He was hanging from the branches of a bristlecone tree as if the burden were nothing at all, swinging carefree with a wide grin on his face as Robert tried to scramble up the trunk after him. For a moment, Stannis had thought his eyes flashed over to the open window where Stannis was standing. He had jerked his head away, and, though he couldn’t say why, had felt heat flush over his cheeks as he thought of Ned Stark and his soft smile and his gray eyes.

And now, on the eve before Ned Stark and his brother and Jon Arryn were to depart, Stannis found himself watching again. This time as Ned Stark sat on a large rock, a soft smile on his face as he regaled a group of children with stories of Winterfell. They asked about the snows and the wildlings and northmen that they had heard grew ten feet tall. And he had laughed lightly, though not at them, and told them of the Night’s Watch and Greatjon Umber and the spirits in the Winterfell crypts, though not enough to frighten them. He spoke of Weirwood trees and the legends of skinchangers as the children squealed in excitement, terror, or wonder. Stannis could never be sure.

And Ned spoke too, as Stannis listened while pretending that he wasn’t, of blue winter roses that grew in the glass gardens. So blue that they put the waters of Storm’s End to shame and so strong that even the frosts and snow could not wilt their petals.

Stannis tried to imagine a flower such as that. He had never seen much use in things such as flowers. Flowers did not grow well at Storm’s End, though his mother had on occasion grown them in the stone hanging baskets outside his father’s solar. You could not eat flowers. They were bound to die almost as soon as you clipped them. They stole nutrients from the wheat and barley and trees that bore fruit and prosperity.

But in that moment, Stannis could think of nothing more beautiful than a winter rose. As blue as his father’s eyes with stems as green as the fabric of the dresses his mother favored. It was perfect in his mind and for a moment, he thought of how perfect it would be to have one because of how much it might make Ned Stark smile his soft smile like he was to the children as he talked. And, consumed with a feeling he did not recognize and could not place his finger on, Stannis longed for a blue winter rose. One to hand to Ned Stark. To make him not miss Winterfell as he clearly did, to show Ned Stark that he was listening, to make him happy with its fleeting beauty.

His feet seemed to follow his mind, and he walked away from the castle, out to the fields right beyond the cliffs where the start of the farmers fields began. There were flowers. Pale white and lilac among the grasses. He was met with mixed urges to stomp them in frustration and to pluck each one carefully in the hope that it might transform into something more breathtaking. He wondered through the field, eyes fixed on the ground, hoping to spot something.

And there, fixed right on the shade line between the field and the trees, was a patch of blue flowers that he thought would suffice. They were not the deep blues that Ned Stark spoke of, but instead a pale color reminiscent of the sky over the castle on clear mornings. They were the only blue flowers he had seen, and, using the small knife tied to his boots, he sliced them free with a careful hand.

He wanted to run back to the castle yard, feeling a lightness in his chest that he couldn’t ignore, that seemed to carry him over the fields. But when he came back, the group of children that had gathered around Ned were playing games with themselves, the large rock he had occupied empty.

Stannis froze, looking around but seeing no sign of Ned Stark. It wasn’t until he was nearly back at the castle that he heard Ned talking to someone, which a loud laugh confirmed as Robert. He stepped around to where they were fighting with blunted swords, splashing mud and sweat around them in circles. He hesitated, feeling panic swell in his chest, expecting Robert to ignore him as usual.

“Are those flowers?” Robert parried Ned’s blade and both of them turned around to look at Stannis, Ned breathing hard even as he gave a small nod of greeting. Stannis felt his face go deep red at Robert’s question, feeling sweat slicken his grip on his carefully cut bouquet. “Got your eye on a maid, Stannis?”

Robert roared with laughter, and Stannis’ face flushed impossible darker. “They’re…they’re for mother’s window.” He said desperately, and Robert’s broad grin showed that his hasty cover up was not believed.

Robert stepped back into his fighting stance to face Ned, eyes moving off Stannis. “Might need a bit more than some ugly flowers to convince one of the ktichen wenches to—"

Whatever the rest of the jape was, Stannis didn’t hear it, barely catching the chastising tone of Ned Stark interrupting Robert as he sped into the castle and tossed the flowers into the first fire he could find. When the boat came the next morning, he did not meet Ned Stark's eye as they departed, but kept his gaze to the ground. As he walked away however, he watched his brown hair from the back until he disappeared into the swarm of men boarding the boats, wondering if the cloudless sky overheard was as blue as the roses in Winterfell might have been. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Decided to split the Stannis/Davos portion into two chapters. Thsi first one is their meeting at Storm's End adn all that business, the second will the the Mannis realizing his feelings.

Stannis thinks that the worst part is the quiet. Silence was something he thought that he had long sought after, something that had always seemed unattainable with men like Robert with his loud boisterous laugh. Or the Lords of the Stormlands that had gathered to declare themselves for him as the banners rose in rebellion and they spent the night drinking themselves into a rowdy howling instead of doing anything productive while Stannis watched from what was now Robert’s chair in the hall, sipping water and keeping an eye on Renly who flitted around the room like a sparrow. They had been loud. So loud that if he closed his eyes, he thought the sound might return to the halls of Storms End, carry into his bedchamber and over the yards to the bay waters.

What he would give for that to be true now.

Winter had come as the war had started, and with it had come the Army of the Reach. At first, the castle had been filled with sound. The tension of men waiting on Mace Tyrell to lead his band of fat, well-fed Tyrell bannerman on an attack. There had been the stamps of patrol boots, the braying of dogs and horses in the yards, the sound of clashing steel as the men at arms practiced. Renly had learned the soldiers songs and would sing them loudly to the amusement of the men, the oldest of whom would tousle his thick black curls as he appeared under their arms, and the youngest of whom would hoist him onto their soldiers for brief rides around the hall or though the covered yard. 

As the siege dragged on, the sound had grown less and less. Renly had still skipped around the hall, wearing a green cloak embroidered with their mother’s Estermont turtles around the edges and the great stag in the center. But he, in the flash of green and gold, has been the brightest bit there in the middle, as the bottom of the grain bags started to show and they had burned one of the barrels that had once been full of fish. The metal clangs became fewer and fewer as the winds started to bite.

When the food was wholly gone, they stopped altogether. Renly stopped his running about the castle and instead seemed to drag his feet, the ends of his small cloak fraying. He spent his meals not amongst the men, but at Stannis’ side at the main table, eyeing his cut of horsemeat with suspicion at first but by the end of the second day was gulping it down with gusto and eyeing old Maester Cressen hopefully for some more. It was then that Stannis first noticed how quiet it was.

But it was not until the first meal with nothing for them to chew on but the glue that bound together some of the largest tomes of the library (now without backing) and the leather that had once been his men’s shoes that the silence became deafening. The winter wind had even frozen the water that seeped through the cracks in the walls and what had once been a constant drip was now another reminder of how long they been encased in these walls. It was as silent as a tomb. He had dreamed one night that it was their tomb and his own skeleton, which looked hardly different than he did now, had been found in the same way he sat each evening, stretched out in his brother’s chair, cloud in his proud house colors with his dying brother’s body sitting there curled on his lap as he had taken to doing.

When the shoes had run out, he had expected the ground to feel cold beneath his feet. But even as the stone cut and scraped the soles of his feet to the point that blood swelled sluggish over the skin and soaked into his socks, he could hardly feel it. He might not have known if it weren’t for Renly, who had cried at the sight when Stannis moved his foot and a red print was left behind on the floor. They had been quiet tears, buried in the clothes that covered Stannis’ now bony collarbone.

When the glue and the shoes and the rats and the horses and the dogs and the cats were gone, one man had taken a bow from the stores and gone to the windows to shoot down at the seagulls that hung over Mace Tyrell’s tent when the fat lord of the Reach gorged himself on peaches and pies and breads in sight of the bay windows. He had climbed the rafters and Stannis had allowed himself to feel a glimmer of hope. The man was a skilled archer, and had the same kind of fierce desperation that Stannis had seen in other men. Had seen in Robert.

But he had scarce nocked an arrow, aiming for a gull that was flying close enough for him to dare and retrieve that the first arrow had hit him in the chest. And then the second. And then the third until the blood bubbled think around his mouth, washing over his gaunt face and running over his stained tunic until he had fallen back from the window, and convulsed twice in death there on the stone. When the others had died, the old knight with the cough that wouldn’t leave him and the squire who had lost his footing on the tower stairs and rolled to the bottom like a spindly marionette, they had wrapped the bodies in their cloaks and dropped them from the cliffs by the yard into the sea where their bodies had bobbed until the waves had swallowed them. They did not do this with the archer.

Stannis had stood there, Renly at his side, one of his hands entwined with Stannis’ and the other held to his mouth as he chewed at his own fingertips, and looked at the man. His men had watched him and he could feel the question in the air between them.

“My lord…” One of the knights had started to speak, but Stannis had lifted his hand.

“Leave him be for now,” Stannis said in the most resolute tone he could muster. “This is not a choice to make lightly.”

The men had nodded and filed out of the hall behind him; Maester Cressen had taken Renly from him, speaking to him softly. For minutes, or perhaps it truly had been hours, Stannis had stood there, staring at the corpse on the floor. The men would listen to him for now, but there was not much longer he could deny this to him. They were wasting away here in this castle, perhaps him most of all, and this, though it might destroy their spirit, would keep them alive a bit longer. Perhaps long enough for them to be freed of all of this. To Stannis, there was no place that had yet seemed so quiet as this room with only him and the archer.

He had stepped towards the man and with two fingers that were unnaturally pallid, had closed his eyes before walking away again. Not to the hall where the men would be expecting him, perhaps to walk in with cuts of meat or some loud speech. But instead, he went down into the bowels of the castle, to the back gate where the crash of the water broke through the monotony of his mind. He could see the ships that barricaded them from the supply lines, the faint flicker of candles in the captain’s quarters as they bobbed just beyond sight for him to make out the details of the men who moved along the decks.

Not fully cognizant of his actions, he felt the rough stone through his trousers as he sat cross-legged on the stone. He let the sound of the water fill him for a long time, closing his eyes without registering the subtle shift in the tone of the darkness. For a moment, a sweet, perfect moment, he could taste the saltwater on his tongue and he didn’t feel the gnawing ache of hunger in his stomach or weakness that made his muscles shake with a subtlety he hoped his men had not noticed.

But it was broken in an instant as the sound of the constant waves faltered. His eyes flickered open, and ice crawled up his spine at the distinct feeling someone was watching him. He looked out at the Tyrell longships, squinting to see if perhaps they had sent a crew of rowers or, Gods forbid, were planning an assault on the castle. But as he watched the dim light, it was impeded by a hazy shape. Stannis blinked, forcing his eyes to focus even as the moment passed and the far away candles became visible again in an instant. A ship, painted black as night and swifter than any fighting vessel, was making its way swiftly towards the shore. He reached for the sword at his side, tightening trembling fingers around the hilt and setting his jaw in a hard line.

He stood in the same movement that it stopped against the shore, and with a quickness he didn’t know he still possessed, he was standing face to face with its captain, the tip of his sword pressed against the point of the man’s chest, pressing between the fibers of his roughspun tunic. He had his hands raised in surrender, and Stannis thought perhaps a sort of wry smile on his face. A shot of anger coursed through him: Was this man mocking him? If he thought that Stannis would abide idle insult, he would hardly be the first man Stannis had run through with his sword.

“Pardon me, Ser,” The man spoke with the accent of the Crownlands, holding heavy on the title as if questioning it. Stannis did not correct him; Ser was not technically incorrect and if this man was a spy he hardly wanted word to reach anyone that the Lord of Storm’s End was spending his evening in the castle docks. “I’ve only come to sell my wares. Not cause trouble.”

Perhaps it was the absurdity of the statement, or the simple honesty that the man spoke with that caused Stannis to relax the grip on his sword for a moment. Sell his wares? “This castle is under siege.”

“I know, Ser,” The man inclined his head, seeming to take a full breath for the first time since docking, “If I could speak with the Lord of the Castle, I think he would like to see what it is I have.”

Stannis blinked at this man, trying to let the hardness that his father had been able to conjure at will flood into his eyes. “Tell me, Smuggler, what you think it is that you could have to so benefit this castle?”

The man stuck his hand in his pock, and Stannis pressed the point of his sword tighter against the man’s chest, watching a tiny prick of blood run down the clean steel. But no more than one drop, running like a tear might until settled along the edge of his blade. But the man did not produce a dagger or knife or sword of his own, instead he held his hand out to Stannis who took the offered lump without registering what it might be.

It was the smell that made him recognize, the shape still obscured by the almost blackness of the bay. It was earthy, the scent of damp soil and herbs and time. It was sweet and as he breathed it in deeply, it started to burn his eyes. It was an onion. A plain, white onion by feel of it; the size of his fist and freshly picked.

“Word came to the villages and the docks that the castle was out of food, Ser; I came with the first shipment I could bring.”

“My lord.”

The correction now came absentmindly as Stannis’ entire focus went to the onion.

“I’m no lord, Ser.”

“I am Stannis Baratheon, brother of Robert Baratheon and current Lord of this castle.” Stannis said simply, his eyes never leaving the papery bulb in his hand. “What’s your name, Smuggler?”

“Davos, m’lord. Just Davos.”

Stannis looked up at him again, where the man’s eyes were now wide.

“Come with me, Davos.” Stannis lowered his sword, though he didn’t put it away, “We’ll get some men to help unload.”

“Of course, m’lord,” And the man jumped from the hull of this ship, tying a set of ropes around the hold bars in motions so fast Stannis could scarcely follow them. He walked half a step in front of Stannis, who kept his eyes on him, watching for treachery or a hidden weapon, his fist never releasing the onion curled there.

* * *

Sound came back to the castle in the same waves that brought life. As the barrels of salt fish and the one precious barrel of pork were emptied into the castle stores, the wood fed the fires for the cookstoves and the hall and ovens where the loose bags of wheat were ground and mashed into a semblance of bread dough. Men that Stannis had seen not hours earlier prepared to eat the one man who dared to brave the outside for food now talked and japed and even sang as they devoured onions like Stannis had seen other men devour pies.

He had taken most of the food back, putting it on strict ration, but Maester Cressen had advised him to let each man have an onion, a scoop of the fermented crab, and a square of the hard baked biscuit that the smuggler had brought to start their strength back up and wash away the taste of rat meat and leather and glue.

And so he had. And the men were acting as though they were sitting a grand feast worthy of the capital, juices running down their gaunt faces and no single bite of the crab that was so salty with its pickling that Stannis swore his tongue was shrinking as he finally took his own portion at the head table. The castle pulsed with life with each crunch of onion, with each crack of biscuit it was as if someone had injected them with pure, undiluted energy. They were still weak but with all of the resolve of a man brought back from the brink of his own existence. Stannis found himself, biting through his biscuit square on his back teeth, thinking of the Iron Born and their Drowned God that had them dying and coming back to life. In this moment, he might understand the euphoria of that.

It had taken him a moment of organizing the men to notice that the Smuggler, Davos, was gone. He was not; however, disappeared, and had come back into sight not moment later from the kitchens, splashed with water and dusted with starch. Not long after and Stannis had smelled the sweet tartness of stewing onions coming from the kitchens where the old cook and his assistant were preparing the breads. Stannis had debated for a moment on inviting the man to sit with him.

He had paid the man the price he had listed, which Stannis had assumed would be unreasonable. But it wasn’t much more than what he could have purchased the goods for at the dock markets. He had offered the man more money, other fine goods they had in the castle. Those things that, he had come to realize when confronted with the realities of the unrelenting nature of the Tyrell siege, that they could not eat. But he would not take them.

He had come from the kitchens and stood, looking around as if debating his next move when Stannis rose to invite him over but Renly got there first. He was back to running through the tables of dining men, pausing only to take a bite out of the onion in his hand, his face tightening at the sour taste but never once complaining. He had wolfed down his crab and biscuit and fish in bites so quick Stannis had worried he would choke, but truly it was Renly’s pure joy at the occasion that had brought life back to the castle. It bolstered the men, and though Stannis could not say why, it had bolstered him as well. His own onion was bitter in his mouth, but he planned to swear for the rest of his life that he would never taste anything half as sweet.

As Stannis watched, chewing slowly, Renly launched himself into the arms of the smuggler who caught him with the ease of someone used to handling children. He lifted Renly’s cape, keeping it from dragging the ground as Renly peppered him with a hundred different questions at once, hardly drawing breath between them. Stannis sat slowly back down, watching the man as he responded dutifully.

He was a plain man by all accounts. Shorter than Stannis, with darkly tanned skin the same color as his eyes and that was only a few shades lighter than this hair. He was dressed in all black, only the nick from Stannis’ own blade showing in the fabric. He was lean, thin, not a warrior. Though he was possed of some strength since Stannis had seen him both lift and help roll many of the barrels he had brought with him into the castle and now he lifted Renly as though the boy weighed nothing. Though, Stannis realized darkly, Renly did not weight so much as he used to, the baby fat nearly gone from his features and even his thick curls looking thin.

“Are you Lord Stannis’ son?” The pair of them were walking towards them, Renly finally quiet as he took another bite of onion.

Renly shook his head, and clambered down from Davos’ arms to run to Stannis who stood as they approached him. “Stannis is my brother,” He said to the man, though he looked at Stannis. “Stannis can Davos stay here with us? He helped the cook make onion soup for supper!”

That explained the spots on his close and the rich smell starting to fill the hall as the raw food became less and less. “Nothing too complicated, m’lord,” Davos bowed as he approached him, stopping several feet away as though unsure he should come closer. “The cook seemed exhausted and it’s a recipe that never fails to please. I hope you wont mind if I take some of it here with you before I take my leave.”

 _Leave?_ The man’s dark brown eyes met Stannis’ with a calm confidence. “I had thought perhaps you meant to stay.”

“Smugglers rarely make good company for lords and knights. I don’t mean to encroach on your hospitality, m’lord.” He inclined his head, “And I must get back to work soon.”

“As a smuggler?”

There was that wry smile again, the same one Stannis had thought he had seen earlier. Though now, with his head clearer and his stomach full, it seemed less a jape and more a sign of the man’s general disposition. “Yes, m’lord.”

“It’s not many a smuggler that would bring supplies to their liege lord.”

“I suppose not, m’lord, if I’m the first you’ve seen.”

“Why?”

“M’lord?”

“Why did you bring the supplies here, then?” Renly had tightened his grip on Stannis’ arm, scowling up at his brother in confusion.

“I told you, m’lord, I heard down at the dock market that the castle was out of food.”

“So you thought this was a good place to turn a profit?”

“Lords do tend to make good on their debts I hear. Can’t say I’ve met many of them.”

“You didn’t ask for an exorbitant rate. I could walk to the market and buy these for nearly the same price.”

“Aye, m’lord, but you can hardly walk to the market.”

The man held his hands together behind his back, holding Stannis’ gaze. He was intelligent. Witty. The kind of man that Stannis wished there were more of in the castle instead of old knights and new warriors who couldn’t tell real war from the stories of the age of heroes. He had a certain affection for them now, having weathered all of this with him, but other than Maester Cressen, they were hardly a group he could talk to like this.

“I would like you to stay here, Davos.”

“I’ve a wife, m’lord, expecting me back.”

“A low-born woman.”

“Much like myself.” He said, and where Stannis had expected a bit of flint, there was no reaction as if Davos had simply come to accept his lot in life.

“Where do you live now?”

“Flea Bottom, m’lord.”

“And if I were to offer you land for when this was over. Land and a knighthood to accompany it, do you think she could want for your company for a bit longer?”

For the first time, the man faltered. There was also a hush fallen over the room, though the crackle of the fire and the continued crunching of the rations kept the horrible silence at bay.

“I don’t know what to say, m’lord.”

“I can’t have smuggler here at court,” Stannis clarified, “Penalty for smuggle is usually the fingertips, isn’t it?”

“I believe so, Ser.”

“Accept that penalty and you’ll be Ser Davos Seaworth with your own lands and small keep. Here in the Stormlands.”


End file.
